


Take Your Love and Throw It Wide

by embroiderama



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: help_haiti, F/M, POV Original Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-22
Updated: 2010-03-22
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:34:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embroiderama/pseuds/embroiderama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His hair was longer, his chest twice as broad across as it had been when he was 18. Still, she knew his face, and she remembered his name, or at least the fake name he'd left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Your Love and Throw It Wide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elanurel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanurel/gifts).



> This is a follow-up to [I Know Where They Go](http://embroiderama.livejournal.com/263132.html) but can stand on its own. This is for [](http://elanurel.livejournal.com/profile)[**elanurel**](http://elanurel.livejournal.com/) for her kind [](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/) bid. Title from "Mouth" by Merrill Bainbridge. Thank you to [](http://cmsieg.livejournal.com/profile)[**cmsieg**](http://cmsieg.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

Even for a Friday, it was bad. Gaby raced around the ER trying to take care of the patients she'd been assigned and handle every random thing the doctors threw at her. On her last few trips past the front desk, she saw a guy in a suit looming over the admissions clerk. He was just another guy, trying to get seen or trying to get information, but something kept drawing her eye in his direction so that every time she passed by she picked up another detail about him.

He didn't look stressed enough to be a potential patient or family member, but no self-respecting pharmaceuticals rep would go around in a suit that didn't fit his shoulders or his ass at all. And he had an awfully nice ass and shoulders under all that cheap fabric. He stood up straight as she walked by, turning half away from the desk, and something in the shape of his face, the slope of his nose, looked familiar. She kept moving, got the bags of IV fluid into curtain eight and hooked one of them up to the patient inside before going back over to the front desk to get a better look at the guy.

He wasn't leaning over Kathy anymore, but he hadn't gone far, leaning up against the wall in the waiting room with his head tilted back against the scuffed plaster and his long legs propped out in front. He closed his eyes and slumped as he let out a deep breath, and as some of the tension leaked out of his face she gasped and bit her lip at the memory.

_Sam, cute and sweet and lonely, watching with hunger and something like shock or embarrassment as she peeled off her nursing student scrubs. Tentative touches from long fingers and the faint fingertip bruises she found the next day, the only trace he left behind._

Gaby shook her head, feeling the end of her braid bump against her shoulders. She suddenly missed the ass-length hair she'd finally cut when wrangling it into shape on long shifts and midnight calls got to be too much, and she wanted to kick herself for being ridiculous. Romanticizing a guy she'd fucked once, a kid who'd disappeared the next day with his barely-healing brother and left behind a mess of stolen insurance that had the hospital's fraud department tormenting the head nurses who took out their frustration on Gaby, then a lowly summer intern. Sam's whole story about heading to Stanford had probably been another lie, and Gaby knew she should just let it go.

Somehow, the part of her brain that controlled her feet didn't get that memo because she found herself crossing the room, wishing she had on something more impressive than rumpled blue scrubs and purple Crocs. She stood in front of him with her arms crossed over her chest, and she saw his body shift, tensing in acknowledgement of the invasion of his personal space. Still, he didn't open his eyes.

"Sam." His name came out more sharply than she'd intended and his eyes opened, his body pulling away from the wall to stand up straight. "So that's your real name, huh?"

"Excuse me?" His voice was deeper than she remembered, matching the bulk she knew he hadn't had at eighteen. His forehead pinched in between his eyebrows as he looked down at her. "Have we met?"

"Sam Caldwell, devoted brother of Dean. 2001. Ohio. Ringing any bells?"

Sam went still and pale, then a blush rose on his high cheekbones as he looked at the floor. When he looked back up and said, "Gaby?" he sounded younger than he had just a minute before.

"Yep." She nodded, stupidly relieved that she was more than one in a blurry multitude.

"Wow, I--" Sam trailed off, smiling faintly as he reached up to loosen his tie. "Wow. It's great to see you again."

"I might say the same except that now I'm wondering if you're going to leave behind a shitstorm here the way you did back in Ohio." The confused look on Sam's face only fueled her irritation. "Insurance."

Sam's mouth rounded into a perfect O and he rubbed a hand through his hair, ruffling it up enough to make Gaby notice how much he'd grown it out. "Shit. I...that was all my dad, seriously, but I'm sorry for the trouble it caused. I'm just here doing research for, uh, for an article, so no insurance involved. Unless you hurt me, that is."

"Oh." Gaby's anger deflated, and she dropped her hands to her sides, wishing she had a chart or something to fiddle with. It did make a lot more sense for Sam and Dean's father to have been the one perpetrating insurance fraud rather than a kid just out of high school. Gaby knew it was the personal aspect of the whole thing that had made the idea of Sam's guilt stay with her through the years. "But your name's not even Caldwell, is it? They couldn't find any kind of record of your family."

Sam looked away and then back. "That's kind of fucked up and complicated, but my dad had his reasons. I swear Gaby, other than my last name, I didn't lie about myself to you."

Sam's big eyes pleaded with her to understand, and it was her turn to look away. "Okay. Fair enough."

"So, it really is good to see you again. Any chance you have a break coming up? Time to get some coffee?"

She was way overdue for a break, just like usual, and when she looked behind her things appeared stable enough. "Hold on a sec."

Gaby grabbed the shift manager long enough to get her okay to take fifteen, and then headed back to get Sam. "I don't have long, but there's a coffee cart down the hall and if we're lucky there'll be a bench free."

"Works for me."

Sam's long stride ate up the short distance down the hall, and Gaby let herself fall a little behind. Even at eighteen, Sam hadn't been carefree, but this bigger, older Sam looked oddly burdened for somebody who wasn't even 25. The way his shoulders curved in when he wasn't busy putting up a front, Gaby had seen that in people who could barely find the energy to hope anymore. Always a mystery--maybe that was Sam's defining characteristic, the one thing he couldn't lie about, the thing that would never change. He ordered something sweet and milky and then turned around and had them put two shots of espresso in it, and he lifted an eyebrow when Gaby ordered a soy chai.

Gaby waited until they were seated on a bench and gave Sam a chance to sip at his concoction before she asked the question that kept formulating and reformulating itself in her head. "So, how does going to college in California lead to being, what, a reporter? In Philly?"

Sam sighed and took a long drink before putting his cup down on the bench between them. "I didn't finish at Stanford. Uh, my girlfriend, Jess. Jess was killed."

"Holy shit, Sam." The suspicious part of Gaby's brain told her that Sam could be playing her, but she had enough experience to know that the grief on his face was honest. "I'm so sorry." She reached out and put her hand on his, feeling his tendons taut under the skin.

"Thanks. It was a few years ago but, well. I took some time off, and I've been traveling around with my brother, doing some freelance work."

"Your dad, too?"

Sam huffed out a sound that might have been a laugh or a cough or a strangled sob. "He, uh, he died about a year after Jess did." He paused and then continued, sounding like he was talking to himself. "Just about exactly a year."

Gaby blinked, not having any idea how to deal with this load of trauma in a guy she barely knew, a guy she'd slept with a million years ago. "And I thought I had a sob story. Boy was I wrong."

"Huh?" Sam looked up, distracted away from his own sadness. "You mean why you're in Philly rather than Canton?"

"Yeah. It's a long stupid story of a guy and falling in love and an engagement and moving here and getting dumped just short of the alter." Gaby shrugged and for once it felt like maybe what happened with Greg wasn't a huge tragedy, was maybe just a story she'd lived through.

"Wow." Sam shook his head. "He must be both blind and incredibly stupid." He picked up his cup and took another long drink, but he kept his eyes on Gaby the whole time and she could feel the tingle in her belly rise into a blush on her face.

"That's--" Gaby flailed around for the right word, the right combination of words, but nothing felt quite right. "Nice of you." She looked at her watch and saw that she only had a couple minutes left in her break. She slammed back the rest of the chai, almost choking on the spicy sweetness. "I have to go, but it was good seeing you."

As she tensed to stand up, Sam put his hand on her knee. The touch sent nerves zinging up her thigh, and she had a sudden flash of his fingers inside her. God, she could almost feel it as she shifted against the hard bench seat. "Wait," Sam said, his voice pitched low. "I'd like to see you again before we leave town. Maybe apologize for the way things ended up back in Ohio."

"And if I don't think you have anything to apologize for anymore?"

Sam's thumb moved in a small arc on her knee, just enough to remind her his hand was still there, just enough to make her bite her lip. "Then I still want to see you again." He pulled his hand away, leaving Gaby feeling cold where his touch had been. "If you have time and if you're not seeing somebody other than that jerk."

"I'm not seeing anybody. And yeah, my shift ends at six. I carpooled with one of the other nurses today so...pick me up?"

Sam pulled out his phone and checked something then nodded. "Six o'clock out front?"

"Make it six-thirty, give me time to clean up."

"Okay."

"Okay," Gaby echoed, then looked back at her watch. "Shit, I gotta go. See you later!" She grabbed Sam's hand just long enough to give it a quick squeeze and then took off in the direction of the ER.

~~~

By six-twenty, Gaby had showered, being careful not to get her hair too wet, then gotten dressed in the jeans and sweater she had in her locker. She unbraided, brushed out and rebraided her hair and then studied herself in the mirror. She saw dark eyes that were too big, olive skin that was neither pale nor tan, hair that was thick and a little unruly but still her favorite feature. She put on some tinted lip gloss then rubbed half of it off as she stared too hard at her own reflection. She couldn't hate Greg for bringing her to Philly; she was making friends, and it was good having to find her own way without her big brother always having her back.

But she did hate Greg for giving her this doubt, this feeling that there had to be something fundamentally wrong with her that Greg would leave her the way he did. She knew she was stronger than that, knew she had to be to have survived the social insanity of high school and college without losing her sense of self. But Sam--he didn't know the girl who gave up listening to the radio in the car because jewelry store ads made her cry one too many times. He only knew the girl who was strong and confident, and in that way maybe he knew her better than any of the people she'd met in Philly.

Gaby turned away from the mirror and pulled on her coat. Outside, just past the ambulance parking area, she spotted Sam leaning up against a car. She couldn't make out the details in the dim lights of the parking lot, but as she got closer she could see it was a gorgeous old gas guzzler, black and shiny and a hell of a lot older than either of them. "Wow, _this_ is your car?"

Sam's mouth twitched into a smile and he ran a hand over the top of the car just above the windows. "It's my brother's, but it used to be our dad's. Dean's letting me borrow it tonight." He opened the door for her and held it until she got inside. She shot a quick glare in his direction for the kind of chivalry that always chafed, but he shrugged it off and walked around to the driver's side. "So, you should tell me where to go. I don't know any good places around here."

Gaby was about to fasten her seatbelt, but instead she knelt up on the seat and turned to face Sam. "Do you really want dinner?"

"Huh?"

Gaby leaned in and kissed him. The first man she kissed since Greg left, and she felt herself swaying in toward him. She put a hand on his shoulder to keep from ending up in his lap, and she could feel the thick muscle under his shirt and jacket as his lips moved against hers. They pulled apart to catch a quick gulp of air, and then Sam's hand wrapped around her waist, his tongue slipping against hers. Then her hip bumped the steering wheel, and the car's horn let out a quick bleat, startling them both into breathless laughter.

"I live ten minutes away." Gaby let her hand drop from Sam's shoulder to his chest.

Sam nodded and pulled her in for one quick kiss before starting the car. Gaby sat down and slid back over to her side so she could put on her seatbelt. Still, she hated the distance between them now that they'd closed it. She directed Sam out onto the main road and then through the few turns to her apartment complex. He parked his amazing, oh-so-wrong car next to Gaby's little Honda and followed her up the stairs to her door.

As soon as they walked inside, as soon as the door closed behind them, Gaby's back was bumping against the door, one of Sam's hands behind her neck tangling in her hair, his other hand sliding under the hem of her sweater as he pulled her up on her tiptoes to close the distance between them. His big, warm palm was flat on the curve of her stomach and his mouth was on hers, lips pressed tight together, tongues slipping between teeth. Any thought of tentative, clueless eighteen-year-old Sam was pushed away by the sheer power of his body, his chest arching against hers. Gaby worked her hands between them, flicking open the button on his jeans and unzipping them while she gasped against his mouth.

He shifted then, his lips on her neck, the light sting of teeth, his hands at her waist undoing her jeans and shoving them down her hips. She stumbled on her feet, kicking her way out of her sneakers and jeans. When he lifted her off her feet, she bit back a shriek at the shock of weightlessness, air under her feet until she wrapped her thighs around Sam's waist. The room swam as he turned around, and then she was sitting on her favorite armchair. Her sweater felt stiflingly hot, scratchy against her sensitized skin, and she struggled out of it as Sam knelt down in front of her.

Sam nuzzled against the sodden cotton crotch of her panties then slipped his hands around the sides of the waistband and snapped it, the fragile seams giving way to his fingers. She felt a breeze of cool air against hot skin, and then Sam ducked in closer, nudging his broad shoulders under her knees until she was cradled between his body and the chair. He traced a light line along the outside of her folds and then pushed deeper in, his tongue poking at her opening and then licking up to tease her clit, his nose in her curls. His tongue danced against her, inside of her, and there was no hesitation. This Sam sure as hell didn't need to be told what to do.

He wrapped his hands around her hips, his thumbs resting just above her thighs, and as she came she shook in his grip. Her tensed-up muscles held her suspended over the chair, all of her weight on his shoulders and hands until she sighed and slumped down, spent and sweating into the upholstery. "God," she whispered. "God, Sam."

He stroked his hands along her thighs and then leaned back, sitting on the floor with all his clothes still on, the hard line of his cock pushing up through the open fly of his jeans. "Can I--" He reached out and ran a hand over her bare knee, sending a new tendril of arousal up Gaby's spine. "Can I fuck you?"

"Oh hell yeah." She thought about just falling to her knees in front of him, fucking him there on the carpet, but her bed was big and comfortable, worth making it to. She stood up and Sam followed suit, then she took his big hand in hers and drew him into the bedroom. She had to turn her back to him to dig a condom out of the bedside table, and they were buried under a layer of other things because she and Greg had gotten to the point of using condoms only when she screwed up her pills. The thought of Greg was a bad distraction, and old pain flared in her gut, but when she turned around and saw Sam everything else slipped away. He was naked, amazingly naked, his broad, chiseled chest rising up above his narrow waist and hips, well-muscled thighs below. He'd been fit six years ago, but holy crap. This was fifty pounds of nothing but muscle added onto his slim frame and she couldn't form a coherent sentence in her head, couldn't look away.

She blinked, shaking herself, and saw that there were other new things too--scars that were pale against his tan arms, healing bruises on his legs. He was beautiful and human and strong and fragile. She stepped close and kissed him, wrapping her hands around his biceps to hold herself up on her tiptoes. His cock bobbed between their bellies, and the corded muscles of his arms flexed under her fingers as he reached behind her and unfastened her bra, the one piece of clothing that remained between them. When she stepped back, it fell to the floor, knocking her out of her reverie.

"Here," Gaby said, handing him a couple of condoms. She hopped up on the bed, and he crawled up as well, snapping open the wrapper and smoothing the condom down over his long cock. When she spread her legs he moved between her knees and pushed inside, filling her up until she had to bite her lip and breathe through the stretch for a moment.

Sam held still until she opened her eyes, and then he started moving, steady thrusts that were so different from the boy Sam had been. She thought of how desperate he'd been, how he'd barely been able to get inside her before he popped like a cork, shaking above her and apologizing. This Sam, this man, he had his own need and desperation, but she had a feeling he'd learned to breathe through it, to hold on and move through it, whatever it was.

She put her hands on his biceps again, not holding, just letting her thumbs lay in the notch of muscle there, slipping through it as sweat collected between their bodies. Their hips found a rhythm together, and Sam dipped his head to suck at first one nipple then the other as he moved shallowly inside her. She felt herself getting close again, her thighs trembling, and then she changed the angle of her hips and pushed up against him, nudging him to go faster, faster until she came, arching her chest up into his mouth.

When she relaxed back onto the pillows, breathing in the sweat smell of them both, he lifted his head and changed the rhythm again. His deep, hard thrusts shook through the bed and through her, and then he shouted, his fingers clawing at the rumpled sheets until he collapsed on top of her, his ragged breaths puffing out over her chest. She smoothed one hand down his back, lazily exploring the lines of muscle and bone that she couldn't quite see.

Sam knelt up just enough to pull out and take care of the condom and then sat on his heels looking awkward for the first time since he'd picked her up. "Do you need me to, uh, leave?"

"No, no, stay." She took his hand and pulled him down to lay next to her, his head resting on her chest again. She wanted to talk to him, find out the secret behind his scars, behind whatever kind of weird freelancing he was doing with his brother, but the long day at work, the emotional mind-fuck of seeing Sam again, not to mention breaking her dry spell in a fairly spectacular way, all combined to wash a wave of sleep over her before she had a chance to figure out how to ask.

When she woke an hour or two later, Sam was asleep, his body lax and his face looking almost as young as it had when he was eighteen. She pet his hair back from his face, and he smiled in his sleep, his lips forming a word she couldn't hear. She wanted to get up, but it wasn't worth disturbing him, so she let herself go back to sleep.

She woke again in the early morning, the sky still dark, only the apartment complex parking lot lights seeping in through her blinds. She was alone in the bed, the covers pulled up over her. A folded up piece of paper sat on her bedside table, and when she pulled it closer she saw it was stationery from a motel in Iowa. It had a phone number and one line of scrawled text.

_If you ever need help._

Gaby sighed and rolled over, feeling the new aches in her body, the tight places in her head and her chest that had become more relaxed. She'd known Sam would leave, and that knowing made all the difference.


End file.
